by David Bret
Director: Daniel Petrie. With Roddy McDowall, Diane Webster, Roger C Carmel.
The Devil You Say (23 October 1973). 71 mins.
Director: Alex March. With Keenan Wynn, Rita Gam, Werner Klemperer.
Freefall to Terror (11 November 1973). 71 mins.
Director: Alf Kjellin. With Barbara Feldon, James Olson, Tom Bosley.
The Man Without a Face (6 January 1974). 98 mins.
Director: Lee H Katzin. With Dana Wynter, Nehemiah Persoff, Stephen McNally, Donna Douglas, Steve Forrest.
Reunion in Terror (27 January 1974). 73 mins.
Director: Mel Ferber. With Buddy Hackett, Salome Jens, Michael Ansare, Carole Cook.
Cross & Double Cross (17 February 1974). 98 mins.
Director: Alex March. With Rhonda Fleming, Carole Cook, Jackie Coogan, Dabney Coleman.
Downshift to Danger (29 September 1974). 95 mins.
Director: Lou Antonio. With Van Johnson, Alex Karras, Peter Breck.
The Game of Survival (20 October 1974). 120 mins.
Director: Harry Falk. With Stefanie Powers, George Maharis, William Windon, Andrew Duggan.
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Buried Alive (10 November 1974). 75 mins.
Director: James Sheldon. With Barry Sullivan, José Feliciano, Donna Mills.
Guilt by Association (8 December 1974). 120 mins.
Director: Harry Falk. With Susan Strasberg, Pat Harrington Jr, John Randolph, David Soul.
Night Train to L.A. (19 January 1975). 75 mins.
Director: Leonard Horn. With Linda Evans.
Love, Honor & Swindle (16 February 1974). 120 mins.
Director: Lou Antonio. With David Birney, Mildred Natwick, Gretchen Corbett, Norman Fell, Richard Deacon.
Deadly Inheritance (28 September 1975). 120 mins.
Director: Lou Antonio. With Mildred Natwick, Jack Gilford, Bert Freed, Pat Harrington Jr, William Demarest.
Requiem for a Bride (26 October 1975). 120 mins.
Director: E W Swackhamer. With Henry Darrow, Geraldine Brooks, Lawrence Pressman, Lew Ayres, Susan Sullivan, Dick Balduzzi, George Wyner.
Aftershock (9 November 1975). 120 mins.
Director: Harry Falk. With Julie Newmar, Robert Loggia, Dabney Coleman, Val Bisoglio, Richard Dawson, Barbara Barrie, Dennis Patrick, Bill Dana.
Secrets for Sale (7 December 1975). 75 mins.
Director: Bob Finkel. With Meredith Baxter, James Olson, Murray Hamilton, Ron Silver.
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The Deadly Crew (18 December 1975). 75 mins.
Director: James Sheldon. With Dick Sargent, Michael Constantine, Lola Albright.
Greed (15 February 1976). 95 mins.
Director: Bob Finkel. Martha Raye, Tab Hunter, Alejandro Rey, Slim Pickens, Don “Red” Barry, James Whitmore.
Point of Law (7 March 1976). 95 mins.
Director: Lou Antonio. With William Daniels, Andrew Duggan, Scott Thomas, Stephen Young, Susan Anspach.
McMillan (Universal Studios, 1976-7)
Devised by Leonard Stern and produced by Paul Mason.
Regular Cast: Rock Hudson, Martha Raye, Richard Galliland, John Schuck.
All Bets Off (5 December 1976). 76 mins.
Director: Jackie Cooper. With Jessica Walter, Dane Clark, Werner Klemperer, Charles Drake.
Dark Sunrise (2 January 1977). 73 mins.
Director: Bob Finkel. With Julie Adams, Karen Valentine, Kim Basinger.
Philip’s Game (23 January 1977). 75 mins.
Director: Lou Antonio. With Shirley Jones, Lloyd Bochner, Nina Foch.
Coffee, Tea or Cyanide (30 January 1977). 76 mins.
Director: James Sheldon. With Julie Sommars, Jack Jones, Marisa Pavan.
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Affair of the Heart (20 March 1977). 73 mins.
Director: Jackie Cooper. With Stefanie Powers, Barbara Babcock, Lloyd Nolan.
Have You Heard About Vanessa? (24 April 1977). 76 mins.
Director: James Sheldon. With Joan Van Ark, Peter Donat.
Wheels (Universal Studios, 7-8-9 & 14-15 May 1978). Mini-series. 5 episodes of 120 mins. Rock played Adam Trenton.
Director: Jerry London. Script: Robert Hamilton, Hank Searls, Roy Huggins, Millard Lampell. Rocked played Adam Trenton. With Lee Remick, Blair Brown, John Beck, Ralph Bellamy, Scott Brady, Lisa Eilbacher, Anthony Franciosa, Jessica Walter.
Superstunt II (NBC Television, 1980). TV movie.
Director: Max Kleven. Script: Peter Lake. Photography: Don Burgess. With James Coburn, Lillian Muller, Deborah Shelton.
The Martian Chronicles (NBC Television 27-28-29 January1980) Mini-series. 3 episodes of 89 mins. Rock played Colonel John Wilder.
Director: Michael Anderson. Script: Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury. With Gayle Hunnicutt, Christopher Connelly, Nicholas Hammond, Roddy McDowall, Bernie Casey, Bernadette Peters, Jon Finch, Joyce Van Patten, Maria Schell, Nyree Dawn Porter.
The Starmaker (NBC Television, 11 May 1981). TV movie.
182 mins. Rock played Danny Youngblood.
Director: Lou Antonio. Script: William Bast. Photography: Charles Correll. With Suzanne Pleshette, Melanie Griffith, Teri Copley, Jack Scalia, Ed McMahon, Brenda Vaccaro, Army.
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The Devlin Connection (NBC Television, 1982-3). 60 mins.
Rock played Brian Devlin. With Jack Scalia.
Brian & Nick (2 October 1982).
Director: Christian Nyby II. With Duncan Ross.
The Lady on the Billboard (9 October 1982).
Director: James Frawley. With Tracy Scoggins, Joanna Cassidy.
Love, Sin & Death at Point Dunne (16 October 1982).
Director: Christian Nyby II. With Hubert Jefferson Jr.
The Corpse in the Corniche (23 October 1982).
Director: Barry Crane. With Faye Grant, James MacKrell.
The Absolute Monarch of Wars C (30 October 1982).
Director: Barry Crane. With Kathryn Lee Scott.
The French Detective (6 November 1982).
Director: Rod Holcomb. With Ian Abercrombie, Sally Hampton.
Of Nuns & Other Black Birds (13 November 1982).
Director: Christian Nyly II. With Melinda Culea, Marj Dusay.
Ring of Kings, Ring of Thieves (27 November 1982).
Director: Jeff Bleckner. With Stepfanie Kramer, Emory Bass.
Arsenic & Old Caviar (4 December 1982).
Director: James Frawley. With Alejandro Rey, Clive Revill.
Claudine (11 December 1982).
Director: Lee H Katzin. With Lew Ayres, Juliet Prowse.
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Alison (18 December 1982).
Director: Bernard L Kowalski. With Judyann Elder.
Erica (25 December 1982).
Director: Bernard L Kowalski. With Anna Bjorn.
Jennifer (1 January 1983).
Director: Bernard L Kowalski. With Julie Sommars.
World War III (NBC Television, 31 January 1982). TV movie.
200 mins. Rock played President Thomas McKenna.
Directors: David Greene, Boris Sagal. Script: Robert L Joseph. With David Soul, Brian Keith, Katherine Helmond.
Dynasty (Aaron Spelling Productions, 1981-9).
Created by Richard and Esther Shapiro. 46 mins.
That Holiday Spirit (19 December 1984).
The Avenger (2 January 1985).
The Treasure (16 January 1985).
Foreign Relations (23 January 1985).
The Ball (6 February 1985).
Circumstantial Evidence (13 February 1985).
The Crash (20 March 1985).
Reconciliation (27 March 1985).
Sammy Jo (3 April 1985).
Theatre Productions
I Do! I Do! (1973-5) US tour, followed by London and Toronto, firstly with Carol Burnett, then with Juliet Prowse.
John Brown’s Body (1976) US tour with Claire Trevor.
Camelot (1977) US tour.
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Album
Rock Hudson Sings The Songs
Of Rod McKuen: Jean; Love’s Been Good To Me; I’ll Say Goodbye; Lonesome Cities; Happy Birthday To Me; As I Love My Own; Open The Window & See All The Clowns; The Ivy That Clings To The Wall; Gone With The Cowboys; Things Bright And Beautiful; Blessings In The Shades Of Green; I’ve Been To Town; You Pass Me By; Meantime.
With The Stanyan Strings, Stanyan Records SR 10014, 1970.
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Appendix V: Biopics & Documentaries
Rock Hudson (Konigsberg/Sanitsky, 1989). 90 mins. TV movie. Director: Renee Palyo. Script: Dennis Turner. Photography: Tom Sigel. With Thomas Ian Griffith (Rock), William R Moses (Marc Christian), Daphne Askbrook (Phyllis Gates), Dianne Ladd (Kay Fitzgerald, Andrew Robinson (Henry Willson), Thom Matthews (Tim Murphy), Mathieu Carriere (Dominique Dormont).
A dramatisation of events in the life of the legendary Rock Hudson, based on books and magazine accounts, personal interviews and court records…Composite characters and resequencing of events have been used for dramatic purposes.
So reads the publicity for this outstanding and intensely moving biopic, but in truth there does not appear to be much of the usual rewriting of Hollywood history here: though most of the major protagonists in the Hudson saga were dead when the film was made, the producer and scriptwriter seem to have made little effort to conceal the true identities of Rock’s earlier lovers other than to change their names. Relative newcomer Griffith is ideally cast as the educationally challenged, sexually voracious lead. Falcon Crest star Moses (whom Rock is alleged to have “fancied” during a visit to the set to see series’ matriarch, Jane Wyman) comes across as affable, sincere and seductive—as Marc Christian is alleged to have been. This appears to have been a calculated guess on the producer’s part, for so little was known about the real Christian, even after the infamous trial. Diane Ladd, who had starred with Rock in Embryo, is less convincing as his mother, though Andrew Robinson—whom Rock had admired as the thug in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 film Dirty Harry—excels as the repugnant Svengali, Henry Willson.
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The story begins three years after Rock’s death, with Christian being mobbed by reporters on the steps of the Los Angeles Courthouse. “Rock Hudson did a bad thing,” he tells them. “But he was not a bad man.”
We are treated to a score of stunning close-ups of the real Rock before his on-screen lookalike appears, striding through the gates of the Selznick studio and into Henry Willson’s office. “Your pants are too short, your lapels are too narrow, but you’re one hell of a package,” Willson says, his expression suggesting that this is one package he has every intention of unwrapping—whilst Rock just stands there, looking dumb.
Rock is handed a slip of paper upon which Willson has scribbled his new name, and in the next scene he is seen stepping out of the Cadillac that has whisked him to his first Hollywood party, wearing excruciatingly tight denims and a cowboy shirt, and looking almost as handsome as the genuine article. Here, sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb, he is ogled and prodded like a stud bull at a cattle market, and introduced to Raoul Walsh, who quips, “At least he’ll make good scenery.”
In next to no time Rock is fluffing his lines in Fighter Squadron. On the set he falls for one of the extras, Tim Murphy, his first soulmate in whom he confides about his awful childhood. Through Tim, over the next few years, his confidence in his abilities grows. The pair share an apartment, and of course it does not take long for tongues to start wagging—and Henry Willson, the arch hypocrite, puts his foot down about them being seen together in public. Thus, as Rock’s career must always come before personal happiness, it is not long before Tim is packing his bags. “You’re so damned scared of being queer,” he laments. “You’re going to spend your whole life denying who and what you are. You can bury yourself if you want to, but you’re not burying me!”
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The split coincides with Rock falling for Phyllis Gates and the success of Magnificent Obsession, and from this point in the story the scriptwriter leans heavily on the Gates book, the fact that they fell in love like a “regular” couple as opposed to Rock being shanghaied into a fake union by Willson. They buy their first home, have fun—and sex, on the set of Giant, and marry when Confidential points the finger of suspicion.
Henceforth, Rock’s libido knows no bounds, and one wonders how the storyline might have changed, had this film been made whilst Phyllis Gates was still alive. The newly-weds are in and out of bed with each shift of the camera angle, but the men are there too: the youth on the beach, the not so discreet pick-ups in gay bars which almost lead to blackmail, the jealous gardener. And of course there is the infamous incident from Phyllis’ book where Rock snaps after one “queer” joke too many, slapping his wife in front of their friends and yelling that he is sick and tired of people telling him what to do. The lavender marriage ends acrimoniously, but we are left with a Rock who is no longer gloomy and always looking over his shoulder. He makes Pillow Talk—an interlude that contains original Hudson-Day newsreel footage, and buys the Castle. Finally he fires the odious Willson.
It’s time I started living on my terms. I’ll do the pictures I want to do, and from now on when I come in those front gates I’m gonna live the way I want to, finally live the way I want to!
And he does! The next scene is one of the famous “Grant and Scott” garden parties, with muscle-bound hunks—and more than a few genuine gay porn stars—decorating the Castle grounds, and one in particular who seduces Rock when the other guests have gone home.
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The scenario then shifts to the sixties: miniskirts, the Vietnam War protests, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations…more movies with Doris Day, and Seconds with John Frankenheimer, who nurses him to sleep after he suffers a nervous breakdown on the set, from which he recovers to make the McMillan & Wife series. At this stage he is living openly with a (non-blond) young man named Sean (Tom Alexander). Then comes Rock’s so-called downfall: the death of his mother; his bypass operation; his meeting with Marc Christian and that episode of Dynasty; his swansong with Doris Day; and the announcement that he has AIDS.
The final scenes are harrowing—sometimes almost too painful to watch and unnecessary to enlarge upon. All in all, a finely balanced and worthy portrait of a remarkable man.
Rock, aka Thomas Ian Griffith
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Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (Couch Potato Productions, 1993). 60 mins. Director/Script: Mark Rappaport. With Rock Hudson, Eric Farr.
Innovative at the time of its limited release, with the rapid growth of modern computer imagery this is now very much of a curiosity but strangely watchable. Rappaport evidently fantasised about getting close to the archetypal slab of American beefcake and, by way of his extraordinary production brought his fantasies to life. Unfortunately, the director was a man in whom Rock would have shown no interest whatsoever, so he provided himself with a more attractive celluloid image—the seriously hunky Eric Farr.
Collaging footage of Rock’s films and Rappaport’s home movies of Farr (not Rock’s, as the title suggests), the director’s theory was to explore, in considerable homoerotic depth, the ironic set-up used in many of Rock’s romantic comedies—as Armistead Maupin described him, the gay actor playing a straight man impersonating a gay man in order to get the likes of Doris Day into bed. Farr, an ethereal-looking model who spends much of his time effetely posing in a tight vest and flexing his muscles, more often than not gets in the way of the real Rock, whose own “body shots” light up the screen. Void of acting experience and ability, Farr had little else to offer. Rappaport—aided by Farr—highlights Rock’s gayness, which was not blatantly obvious at the time as is suggested, otherwise Rock would not have survived 35 years in the closet, by freeze-framing certain gestures from his films: sly winks, curled lips and sneaked sidelong “amorous” glances at homophobic co-stars such as John Wayne.
Rappaport, himself a purveyor of mostly forgettable films since the early seventies, wrote in Film Quarterly:
&nbs
p; 317
Rock Hudson was a prisoner, as well as a purveyor of sexual politics and stereotypes...He is a prism which sexual assumptions, gender-coding and sexual role-playing in Hollywood movies and, therefore by extension, America of the 1950s and 1960s can be explored. In a sense, it is Hudson’s sexuality that is the real auteur of his movies—just as his closetedness was the icon all America was worshipping.
Absolute rot, of course! Such wishful thinking aside, the critics were divided in their opinions. Some denounced the film as “exploitative claptrap”, other critics refused to review it. Premier’s J Hoberman considered it a melodrama worthy of Douglas Sirk and enthused, “The brilliance of Rock Hudson’s Home Movies lies not just in the reanimation of its star. Rappaport invests ‘Rock Hudson’ with a passion and pathos barely evident in his original imitation of life.”
Rock and Eric Farr in Rock Hudson’s Home Movies
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The Wild Ones (Tom of Finland/Renegade Productions, 1994). 120 mins. Director/Script: Durk Dehner. With Zak Spears, Bull Stanton, Wolff, Blake, Steve Gibson, Clint Benedict.
This XXX-rated movie centres around Rock’s visit to the Black & Blue Club, San Francisco, and is not for the squeamish! It was dedicated to the memory of Kaka magazine’s Tom of Finland, famed for his illustrations of leather-clad, phenomenally endowed macho men. The sequence featuring the Hudson character (Spears) was filmed in the backroom of the equally infamous Eagle Bar.
